It's Sunday morning in Laos and I am still in Luang Prabang. What a great relaxing place this is. So laid back, so beautiful and right on the edge of some great wilderness and jungles. It can be so comfortable and urbane here one moment and in another it is obvious that you are in an impoverished third world country. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This blog entry will be my last of this series of Thailand entries and may not be as interesting as some others (it is hard to follow up the Toilet entry, everything else seems dull by comparison). This entry is necessary, however, to put an end to Thailand, chronicle the journey and transition into Laos. I'm sure I will be back in Thailand sometime before I'm through because there is much more to see in that country and the two weeks I spent there is a short amount of time.

My plan was to leave Chiang Mai and take the classic backpacker route through Chang Khong, Thailand, cross the border to Huay Xai in Laos and take the slow boat to Luang Prabang. The slow boat seems to be a necessary journey in order to get your backpacker merit badge.

I got out of bed in Chiang Mai about 6:00 AM on Monday, January 3rd. It was the first time in my travels that I've had to get up this early, 8 or 9 AM being the norm. It was COLD that early in the morning, who knew? After breakfast I flagged down a tuk-tuk to take me to the bus station outside of town. Tuk-tuks are open air, 3 wheel, stinky, noisy vehicles that are everywhere in Thailand and are a great, low cost, way to get around. They are always available and always try to overcharge foreigners. Bargaining with them is part of the fun but it's also a pain in the butt at times and I always kinda feel like I paid too much.

The only real way to "win" is to not care and be able to walk away (just like buying a car) and then you can often get what you think is a good deal. Only once has a tuk-tuk driver driven away from me after cursing at me when I stuck to a price I thought was fair and wouldn't budge. That was okay though because I got a ride a few minutes later for the price I was willing to pay. If you're in a hurry though then you'll always pay more, these guys can sense it and they are professional bargainers!

When you stand back and think about it though the difference in what you pay to maybe what you could have paid is usually less than a dollar and that dollar is much more valuable to them then it is to me. You just gotta have the right perspective and bargaining can be fun. I don't always have the right perspective though but I'm learning!

Anyway, the ride to the bus station was quite cold (it was probably in the high 40's at the time) and I only had on my usual short sleeve shirt. The ride took about 20 minutes and I was glad when it was over so I could warm up.

The bus station was very interesting and a great cultural experience for me. The public buses seem to be primarily used by Thais as there were very few foreigners around. I would learn later that most foreigners who go to Chiang Khong take a mini-bus and not public transportation. That's too bad for them because the Thai bus system seems quite organized, relatively comfortable and very punctual - not the norm in Asia!

Most of the signage was in Thai and I had no idea where I was going but a few questions and key words got me in the right direction and to the right bus. As it turned out I was the only white guy on a full bus, the rest of the passengers were made up of rural Thais who were very nice and pleasant. Plus, it is also nice to sit next to a Thai as they are small and don't take up much room or encroach on your seat like a fat westerner might. The seats were relatively comfortable but are made for Thai people and thus are a bit smaller than western bus seats.

The trip was scheduled for 6 hours and cost 218 baht (about $5.50) with many stops along the way, both at official bus depots and unofficial stops in the middle of nowhere to drop off and pick up passengers. At the official bus stops I was never quite sure how long we were staying as no one spoke english, I would just get out and stretch, use the toilet, buy some food or water and get back on and wait. I read alot and looked forward to the great Northern Thailand scenery. The scenery was somewhat obscured by the fact that the bus windows probably hadn't been cleaned for years but it was neat to just stare out the window and watch the country pass.

The bus was a normal 40 passenger one and seemed a bit old. At the first stop about 1-1/2 hour into the trip the bus driver got out, found his tool box, crawled under the bus and started wrenching on something. It didn't give me much confidence but no worries mate, the bus ran like a champ. The hills were a bit steep and the bus had to shift way down and at times crawled at about 5-10 km/hr but this all seemed normal and was factored into the scheduled time as the trip took almost exactly six hours.

When we got to Chaing Khong there were only a couple people left on the bus and I didn't know where we were. There is a town short of Chiang Khong called Chiang Kham and I thought for sure that's where we were. So I was sitting on the bus looking at the driver and asking "Are we in Chiang Kham or Chiang Khong?" of course to my ear these places sound exactly alike and to his ear too as he just looked at me and said "Chiang Kh&%^%". I was lost and feeling stupid just sitting there sure we were in Chiang Kham and not at the final destination yet. The bus driver kept staring at me and I finally figured out we were probably in Chiang Khong when he got out of the bus and I saw him throw my backpack out on the sidewalk. I got the hint so I got off the bus with a sheepish grin, said thank you and retrieved my backpack.

Chiang Khong is a small town on the Mekong River at one of the few official border checkpoints with Laos. There really isn't much to recommend this town and its primary existence for travelers is to expedite a journey to Laos and onto the slow boat. They are very good at that. Most people spend one night (or a maximum of two if they didn't get their Laos visa before hitting the town). The guesthouses all sell the slow boat tickets and really a "door-to-door" experience from the guesthouse in the morning to the slow boat in Laos. The cross border communication and execution is awesome and very surprising that it works as efficiently as it does. You pay for everything at the guesthouse in Thailand and it gets you on the boat a few hours later, pretty much hassle free.

The guesthouses give great advice, lots of opinions and even pack a lunch for you to take on the boat. The increasing popularity of this journey for travelers is a great boon for this little town and brings a substantial amount of revenue to this area and Thais, in their industrious way, take full advantage of this opportunity.

The guesthouse I found was rather spartan but was only 100 baht a night ($2.50). The shower and toilet were outdoors, the bed was HARD (I would learn that hard beds are the norm in Laos) and it was cold at night. Oddly, the window in my room wouldn't close so I slept in full gear and still was freezing. They said they had hot showers so in the morning I trudged outside to get a shower and wake up. Alas, there was no hot shower as I learned after sticking my head under the water. I didn't stay in there more than a minute as my teeth started chattering. The place was right on the Mekong and it was quite beautiful so it really didn't matter and I don't think I smelled too bad.

Here are a few pictures of the guesthouse.
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Here's a neat view of the Mekong from the guesthouse and a couple of other river pictures.

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I did spend some time walking around Chiang Khong as it was a beautiful day and I had plenty of time to kill. Here are some pictures of a few local Wats and homes that I found interesting.
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That's it for Thailand. The next blog entry will chronicle the very cool slow boat trip down the Mighty Mekong River!

Here's a picture of me petting Phet, a 5 year old female Tiger in the jungle outside Luang Prabang. More details and pictures of this beautiful animal are forthcoming.

Thank you for reading this. I hope to make this blog both interesting and entertaining. Please post a comment and let me know your thoughts, observations or counsel. Hearing from readers and knowing I have an audience is a great motivator and will be a great morale booster during down times on the road. Don’t forget to bookmark this site and tell a friend! Please feel free to e-mail me at “JeffMichie at Yahoo Dot Com”